


Soldier

by Dryad



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Come At Once, M/M, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 20:52:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6129715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dryad/pseuds/Dryad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was soft, like melted candle wax. Burned by the heat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soldier

**Author's Note:**

> colebaltblue gave me this prompt from (ALEXANDER) Hamilton:
> 
>  
> 
> _I remember that dreamlike candlelight_  
>  Like a dream that you can’t quite place

"A toast," said Sherlock, raising his glass and looking at Watson expectantly. 

Watson rolled his eyes but raised his own glass in turn. "What are we toasting, then?"

"Your safe return," Sherlock answered solemnly and sincerely, and tossed the shot of whisky down his throat before he decided to rethink it. 

And when he did think on it, those months later, it was to relish the dreamy touch of Watson's hand on his back as he coughed and choked and spluttered from the burn of the whisky. A smooth, peaty fire that went down like lava from the sides of a volcano. Or something like that. Maybe if the lava was going down the volcano instead of up...? In any case, in retrospect that night had been perfect, perfect. With the completion of the case they had gone to dinner at Angelo's, a little hole in the wall in a neighborhood full of immigrant Italians. Angelo himself was always happy to see Sherlock, even though half the time Sherlock never paid for his meal. 

As usual, Angelo lit a candle for them, winking at Sherlock when he thought Watson wouldn't see. As usual, Sherlock was a little bewildered by Angelo's friendliness to them. By all rights, he should have kicked them out and called the police, yet he didn't. Well, it wasn't as if they were doing anything immoral or illegal. Sherlock was well acquainted with those kind of activities when abroad, using them to his advantage when possible. But Angelo was from abroad, too...so perhaps he was simply happy to see two men behaving in less than a typical British fashion. That seemed plausible. 

They had ordered wine (surprisingly, Angelo carried decent wine) and osso bucco and lady fingers drenched in coffee-flavoured liqueur and layered with creme patissiere, then topped with sliced almonds and whipped cream and shavings of chocolate. As a dessert, it was possibly his favorite foreign food. It ha all gone swimmingly until Watson had dropped his bombshell. Yes, of course Sherlock had been expecting it, he knew what calibre of man was John Watson.

Like Watson, he did his duty. Of course, his was ahead of the front lines, long before any troops ever even reached those tenuous goal posts. Mycroft was silent on the subject whenever Sherlock brought him up, which let Sherlock know that nothing...terrible had happened. 

When the war was over, Sherlock returned to London with the knowledge that far worse was to come. The social structure of more than one country had been torn apart and in the ensuing vacuum, criminals were taking their chances. While some gangs were obvious in nature and easy to destroy, over time it had become clear that there was one hand moving those fingers from this pie to that, and the owner of that hand lived in Britain. In London, to be precise. He had much work to do, with or without Mycroft's aid. Not that Mycroft would turn down _Sherlock's_ services if they got him the information he wanted.

Several years passed.

"I don't know" was always Mycroft's infuriating answer, and this day was no different. Worse, Sherlock could feel Mycroft's sympathy, which was ridiculous, the man had none. Storming out of Mycroft's basement office, bypassing the other troglodytes with nary a meeting of the eye, spitting out their secrets without a single care for the displeasure that would come on the heels of Mycroft's later visit, Sherlock wrapped his scarf more tightly about his neck and strode rapidly down the street. Oh, there were plenty of taxis about, there always were around Whitehall and its environs, but he felt the need to stretch his legs, to burn off whatever it was he was feeling. 

How could Mycroft _not know_ where he was? How could John Watson have disappeared in the middle of a battle and not been found? He was not among the dead, nor among the wounded. No trace of his clothing or his identification had been discovered. Of course Sherlock had kept himself busy, crime didn't stop simply because one's life did, no. Yet the question of John Watson was like a prickle in your sock when you couldn't remove your boot - it went from annoyance to agony within a short space of time. Even Sherlock's contacts on the continent had nothing to report.

It was frustrating in the extreme.

And, there was nothing he could do except wait for news.

Jackie Wyndham, dilly boy for the eponymously and so wrongly named gangster, Reginald Truelove, was in hospital, recovering from a rival's 'gentle suggestion' that he find himself another corner to work on. Jackie must have needed money, he usually avoided talking to Sherlock at all costs. Again, Sherlock wasn't sure why, he'd never done anything to the boy. Nonetheless, by the time he reached the hospital he had worked off Mycroft's stench and was feeling much more willing to deal with the world.

"I says look, I ain't goin' nowhere but where I'm told, and he says well, if you don't Mister Moran'll hear about it and you don't want him comin' after you an' all," said Jackie, pausing to take a sip of water. "You've 'eard of Mister Moran, 'aven't you, Mister 'olmes?"

Sherlock steepled his hands in front of his lips and frowned. He had been hearing Moran's name for at least a year, usually in connection with small, barely noticeable crimes - purse snatching, charitable fraud, shoddy building work where a person paid up front, that sort of thing. Lately, however, he had become bolder by half, as if he were unafraid of being caught. Rumour had it that he had connections to India and the Crimea, yet so far Sherlock had been unable to find any other information about him. He was clearly the face of someone else, but who? For all Sherlock know, the true mastermind could be behind that curtain by the door, or over there, that fellow in the wheel chair, his head all bandaged in white apart from where the blood had seeped through. Hell, he could be -

His heart stopped. Sherlock stared at the man in the full beard lying in the bed next to the man in the wheel chair. His eyes were closed, and his hands, where they lay on the coverlet, were swollen and filthy with dirt. His hair had been roughly cut (chopped was really the better term for it), a curious mix of brown and blone and gray with strands of silver. A stack of clothing was on top of a well-worn pair of boots on top of the table between the beds.

"Mister 'olmes?"

Sherlock ignored Jackie, gliding towards the bed where John Watson lay as if he were in a dream.

"Mister 'olmes, can I get a penny? Mister 'olmes!"

There was a chair on the other side of the bed and Sherlock settled onto it, unable to believe his luck. Watson was asleep, or appeared to be. But his beathing was fast an shallow, not deep and slow, and he couldn't help the twitch of his hands. Sherlock didn't know what to say. He settled on hello. "John, it's me. I don't know if you can hear me, but I've been searching for you for years. I can tell you've been living rough, and that you've only recently come home. You've been in France, from the cut of your clo- "

"You are so full of shit."

The voice was rusty, but as dear to Sherlock as his violin. Perhaps even more dear than that. "France. Paris. No, Marseille, or maybe Nice. That's how you came back to Britain, by sea, and who would notice an extra sailor getting off a foreign boat? Did you call yourself Jean - Jean Dewat, perhaps? Hurl sabots as you crossed the channel? Sing the Marseilleuse and shout liberte, fraternite, and egalite into the wind?"

Watson cracked one eye open. "You are ridiculous."

Sherlock grinned, but quickly sobered. Glancing over his shoulder, he shouted, "Nurse!"

"No," said Watson, trying to push himself upright. "Sherlock, no!"

Sherlock didn't even bother waiting for the nurse to draw near before issuing instructions. "This man is coming home with me. The address is two-two-one bee Baker Street. I want him moved immediately."

The nurse looked at Watson with no little satisfaction, by which Sherlock knew she was a horrid person. John Watson was the kindest (and sternest) of men, who laid waste to women as Sherlock had never seen before or since. "I'll get right on that."

Despite Watson's protests - honestly, why he even bothered when it was obvious he was desperate to leave the ward baffled Sherlock - he was safely ensconced in Sherlock's bed with plenty of tea and toast. Now that he was propped up against the headboard, nibbling on a corner of toast with the honey Sherlock had harvested only the summer before, Sherlock could see that he had been without a domicile for some time, weeks, if not months. Finally Watson put down the toast, allowed Sherlock to take the plate with hands that shook only slightly. He smiled slightly, crossed his legs. "Tell me."

"You don't want to deduce it?"

"John. Please."

Watson's eyes widened before he closed them, and began to speak. "I can't tell you where I've been, Holmes. I don't even know myself. One minute I was in no man's land, and then I wasn't...I...I married, though. I have a child, somewhere," he did a funny head bob and frown. " _Had_ a child. Mary was her name. She was a nurse. Is a nurse, I don't know anymore. I think his name is William?"

"Oh," replied Sherlock, rather taken aback by this news. Though Watson clearly loved the fairer sex, Sherlock had always assumed he had no interest in children, after all, he could easily have been married several times over at this point.

Watson shook his head. "It doesn't matter now. He's gone, out of my life, and so is she."

"Ah," answered Sherlock.

"I was shot. Struck in the shoulder. I don't remember how or who or where."

"Is that why you didn't come home?"

"No...I don't know. It seemed easier to live rough."

"To be invisible."

Watson nodded.

Gazing at him, Sherlock was struck with the sudden notion that John Watson didn't belong to any one else but him. He was pierced through and through with the soundness of it, the _rightness_ of it, and when Watson glanced up from his study of the bedspread, Sherlock leaned forward and kissed him. He quickly sat back, aghast at what he had done, and hopeful Watson wasn't going to try to deck him.

Watson blinked. "Sorry?"

Sherlock shook his head helplessly. He shrugged, spreading his hands wide because he didn't know, either.

But Watson was starting to smile, and he reached out and slipped his fingers between the buttons of Sherlock's shirt just below his neck, pulled him forward and kissed him back.

Quite thoroughly.

**Author's Note:**

> So...that turned out differently than I expected? 
> 
> Due to unforeseen circumstances, I only had about 3 hours to write - this is what my brain came up with. Actual porn next time, I promise.


End file.
